I am hoping to talk to technologists in (or previously in) & around the federal gov for a project. If that sounds like you & you'd be willing to chat with me about what the federal government gets right & what it can do better, reach out at [email protected] or send me a message here!

A first sighting in the wild. I guess we’re all rolling with the name Community Notes! Any ideas as to whether this data will be available?

Since the viral Gemini image incident, I've wondered how long it would take for genAI to become politicized. It’s become increasingly clear that moment has arrived—much like it did for social media platforms. Read more from my new @brookings.edu research here: www.brookings.edu/articles/is-...

Since the viral Gemini image incident, I've wondered how long it would take for genAI to become politicized. It’s become increasingly clear that moment has arrived—much like it did for social media platforms. Read more from my new @brookings.edu research here: www.brookings.edu/articles/is-...

X is wild because you can post a link to a NYT feature story on this and no one will see it, but cuntycakes123 can make a post summarizing the main bullet points with no attribution and it will go viral and everyone will be like "OMG why isn't the media covering this?!?"

The amount rumors & conspiracies online right now is truly stunning & a clear illustration of the info supply & demand problem during breaking news periods and tragedies, made much worse by major platforms effectively abandoning content moderation & mainstream outlets running with unverified claims.

Political violence is bad. It usually begets more political violence. Celebrating political violence is bad. It usually encourages more political violence, against various targets. Campus shootings are bad. They make everyone on campus less safe. It's bad that what I wrote here is controversial.

The problem with this (or goal all along!) is that @anthropic.com’s UI makes it so difficult to know which toggle is on and which is off! www.theverge.com/anthropic/76...

Maybe now they’ll definitely pass….oh nevermind www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Come intern with my team and me in the AI and emerging tech initiative @brookings.edu! interns-brookings.icims.com/jobs/3690/fa...

So obviously AI slop with more than 32k likes on Threads…

A peak inside what the federal government is planning for AI adoption (GitHub link included) www.theregister.com/2025/06/10/t...

The effect of this is so much bigger than Google’s advertising revenue and extends to companies that rely on Google search to drive traffic…which is most of the internet? www.wsj.com/tech/ai/goog...

Opening a significant Senate hearing on AI policy at which Sam Altman will testify, Ted Cruz (R-Texas) calls for a hands-off approach: "To lead in AI, the United States cannot allow regulation, even the supposedly benign kind, to choke innovation." Live: www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/5/winni...

Meanwhile, over on X, a fake "Polish reporter" with an AI avatar has convinced thousands of people that Sen. Gillibrand is campaigning for Cuomo. Every day a new little experiment in how easily people fall for bullshit they can react to.

Apple with the brutal AI summary

Ending rather than expanding this program should tell you all you need to know about the desire to use technology to improve how government functions apnews.com/article/irs-...

What a great way to communicate with voters. I wish more people with policy expertise would do this type of outreach www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/Vrj...

Love to see my alma mater @bowdoin-college.bsky.social tackling some of these big questions www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/t...

"Effective policymaking relies on accurate and timely data," says Caren Grown. Listen to a new episode of The Current, on the purge of data and information from U.S. government websites.

One of my favorite assignments I’ve seen is for students to pick a relevant topic or idea on Wikipedia lacking in information and do research to fill it in! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This type of error may seem minor but is really detrimental toward lowering the political temperature and working toward some common conception of “truth”

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

We’re hiring a program assistant on the AI and Emerging Tech team @brookings.edu ! Please share with your networks and apply soon if this sounds like a good fit for you! careers-brookings.icims.com/jobs/3616/pr...

How can researchers identify covert state propaganda campaigns in China? My co-authors Yin Yuan, Molly Roberts, Brandon Stewart @bstewart.bsky.social and myself are excited to share our new article in PNAS (@PNAS): doi.org/10.1073/pnas... Thread below.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team is reportedly using artificial intelligence to guide its cost-cutting decisions, a tactic AI experts say could cause security breaches, biased firing choices and cuts of highly qualified, essential government staffers.

New, from me: Musk is not just destroying core government functions, he is also destroying the tech capacity of government. The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...

Actual question — where is the Democratic Party’s equivalent of #CPAC? It seems like a very valuable way to keep voters engaged year after year but as far as I can tell it doesn’t exist at all? Or if it does, why do we never hear about it?

This brief exchange perfectly sums up the current state of the post-truth online information space.

hi! This is the document I think you want: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Ahh, I’m old enough to remember when Community Notes was a way to get to the “baseline truth” x.com/elonmusk/sta...

Some groups are working to archive and save government websites and data right now. Among them: WayBack Machine (my screengrab below is from) End of Term Crawl Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab ICPSR 19th News PolicyMap Public Environmental Data Partners Environmental Data & Governance Initiative

It’s giving

JUST IN: Another medical horror story in an affidavit from a USAID employee stationed overseas. Says his pregnant wife was not medevac-ed for emergency health care because of directives from DC. Took intervention of a U.S. senator to reverse — but was too late. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

The "large scale social deception" contract Musk is conspiracizing about was: * first awarded under Trump * paid to Reuters' data division, not the newsroom * for researching *defenses* against deception * not revealed by "DOGE investigations" and was a public record, visible online for many years

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is a crowdsourced solution (a la Community Notes) that actually works at scale! Sad to see some of the strategies taken in places like Saudi Arabia will need to expand www.404media.co/email/38ceb1...

The initial reaction by police - this is the crux of why women aren’t protected: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Here are the dozen eggs ChatGPT's Operator spent $31.43 on without my permission. They weren't even organic! wapo.st/3CBSHuR

I tried something! Let me know if this works for you. This is a handbuilt list of journalists, academics, industry figures, activists et al on Bluesky who are focused on tech — especially online platforms, social media and AI. Click "Pin to Home" if you find it worthwhile: bsky.app/profile/will...

this appears to be based entirely on subscriptions for Politico Pro that many govt agencies pay for. but it doesn't matter, this is now fact for roughly half the country for eternity and will be used to do whatever they want.

Yesterday I saw posted here a useful Google Doc with a list of projects where groups were scraping or otherwise preserving government website material. Does anyone know where that is?

Really important, data-driven work going on @brookings.edu by some of my colleagues. Check it out! 👇👇 Tracking federal expenditures in real time by @laurenhlb.bsky.social and the Hamilton Project: www.hamiltonproject.org/data/trackin...

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

Brookings is pleased to announce the appointment of Elham Tabassi as the new director of our Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technology Initiative. She will also serve as a senior fellow in our Global Economy and Development Program. Learn more about her appointment here:

Could not be more thrilled to work alongside and learn from our new @brookings.edu AI and Emerging Technology Initiative Director Elham Tabassi www.brookings.edu/news/elham-t...

Giving real every presidential election model energy, @theathletic.bsky.social

What an…odd takeaway from this figure from Gallup’s newsletter today

Tech Policy Press, in partnership with Freedman Consulting, is tracking the appointments, nominations, and confirmations for more than 100 key federal tech-policy-related positions. Click through to our tracker here:

As “efficiency” becomes a major focus of conversation in DC, I wrote for @brookings.edu about the potential of tech solutions, where they have gone very wrong, & why we should be cautious even as we explore opportunities to leverage tech to better serve citizens www.brookings.edu/articles/for...

Another example of AI systems substituting for human engagement to solve a broader challenge with loneliness www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/t...